Gordon Brown today accepted MP’s recommendations for an annual report and debate on the state of UK surveillance in a speech which rejected charges that the government’s increasing use of high-tech surveillance compromises British citizens' liberties.
He also said the government was considering subjecting all new UK legislation …

COMMENTS

Page:

Terrorism is not the only fruit

Are you happier? According to Brown here, people *like* CCTV. So since you have so many CCTV cameras everywhere you must be really really happy.

They're putting speakers on them now, soon you will be practically organismically happy, safe in the knowledge that if you are doing any wrong a voice from above can bark at you, 'you there cyclist in red shorts, wait at that traffic light', 'you there with the dog, don't let it pee near than man's tyre'.... joy oh joy.

Jacqui's busy making all sorts of personal choice stuff illegal, because you need protecting from yourself! The ultimate caring is your minister wants to impose her personal choices onto you because she is right and you are wrong. Be well citizen, sing with joy!

DNA lets us catch criminals, some people object because it is being used for minor stuff like catching people who spit. They are of course wrong. People are afraid of people who spit, it is anti social, whereas locking people up for spitting is social. Terrorism is also anti-social, so why do these people support Bin laden spitting?

Then we lock people up for 42 days, without charge, but only under exceptional circumstances. But 28 days was previously the 'exceptional circumstance', and now it becomes the 'norm', prior to that 14 days was the 'exceptional circumstance' but now it's routine, prior to that 3 days was the 'exceptional circumstance' now it's just the exception. Your government is trying it's best to protect you from bad people, who are so bad they need to be locked up, but not so bad that they need to be charged with a crime. Double plus joy citizen!

Soon we will be discussing the 'Return Directive' pushed by Britain. See Britain has a problem with immigrants from Eastern Europe, the newspapers blame 'immigrants' so the minister tries to twist that to 'non EU immigrants' and pushes a directive to detain illegal immigrants for up to 18 months. It won't fix it, but it will make nice headlines. Joy be with you.

****

It seems to me the ultimate purpose of life and therefore government is to make it's citizens happy. Britain is unhappy, you can argue that if we didn't have these things then Britain would be *more* unhappy, but the rest of the world is doing a lot better without them.

Sleepwalking?

I must have been asleep.

I had this weird dream that some years ago Parliament enacted the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIP Act) which basically allows anyone with government approval to spy on any 'citizen' (aka 'Subject').

Sleepwalking into a surveillance society?

No ... we've passed that point some time ago.

The notion of Innocent until proven Guilty went away a long time ago and now we have the loss of Habeas Corpus.

I, among many, have called Brown a Stalinist. I continue to call him Stalinist. All that are missing now are the pogroms.

Gorfdon Brown is eroding the public privacy, liberties and human rights

Again the british governent is selling the people out with the CCTV, also the way they are keeping it out of the news the Phorm monitoring everything you do over the internet. ICO says it maybe legal. The illegal trials BT completed they will not investigate. Then there is the pdf released by Simon Watkin ICO page 13 is a very interesting read. All Gordons promises are just hot air to cloud the issue and shut up the public, do not trust him any more he is also the unelected prime minister!

Read more on the Communications Data Consultations on access and code of practice foir voluntary retention. Page 13. Government will stand with industry on any human rights challenge! that says it all

Survilence is coming in all forms CCTV, Internet interception, next it will be mobile phone taps and land line taps without warrents.....

another "gimme" to appease the peasants.

How about a freedom investigation into MP's, their spending, their complete lack of care at what people think (referendum on europe, how our tax payers money is wasted, how we really feel about MP's, how much we really think parliament is a job for the boys and bears no direct bearing on what people actually need or care about in the real world.)

Or a large sliding scale from "free" to "owellian" at the two ends. Get rid of the london eye-sore and then the whole world can see.

Communications data consultations on access code

This is by Simon Watkin do a google search for communications data consultations on access and a code of practice for voluntary retention by Simon watkin this will give you the power point page 13 says it all...

V

"Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquillity of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent."

Citizens

I thought we were 'subjects' not citizens. I'd prefer to be the former given what the latter implies these days.

"He also said the government was considering subjecting all new UK legislation to something called a “freedom of expression audit”."

What about the existing nonsense already in place?

As usual, Scott Adams already lead the way with a Dilbert cartoon. Specifically, one in which Dilbert is interviewing a candidate who asks him the question: "Why do you have to specifically use the phrase 'We enable our employees to feel empowered'?"

"Do you really think we're that stupid"

Sorry to break it to you guys, we represent perhaps a 1% demographic of people who:

A) Are well informed.

B) Don't automatically believe the hype.

C) Have the intelligence to form opinions based on fact.

D) Have the forsight to realize that what we allow the Gov to do today, has much more of an impact on the future generations than it will ever have on us.

E) That when those millions fought and died for this country, it wasn't to prove a point to Hitler, it was to preserve the very freedoms that NuLabour have taken from us.

The other 99% of the country (and it's rising every day) either don't care or don't understand. If you can keep people busy fighting each other, suing each other, or desperatly looking for that next pay check, then they'll be too busy to notice as they lose what is truly important.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Gov doesn't want an intelligent population, they want livestock.

Labour have killed our National Identity. Don't let them bring it back as a register.

Gordon Brown Is Right...

Jilted John was Right

(for those that remember his song).

I have a laptop with one of those annoying fingerprint scanners on it. It keeps popping up boxes complaining that it couldn't read my finger print if I rest my hand on it so I finally got annoyed enough to go look up how to disable the damn thing.

Anyone remember the chap with the Mercedes where the crooks just chopped his finger off and used it? Or the Mythbusters episode where they totally fooled a fingerprint lock?